


Time to Be a Thief

by skidmo



Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-03
Updated: 2011-07-03
Packaged: 2017-10-20 23:45:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/218405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skidmo/pseuds/skidmo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ben was big on promises.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Time to Be a Thief

“Promise me you’ll hit on someone,” Ben had said late one night, early in their relationship, when Michael could still sometimes forget that Ben had this Thing inside him, this Thing that changed everything.

“What?”

“When I’m gone. Promise me you’ll hit on someone.”

It was early enough, in fact, that Michael could answer, “ _If_ you...die on me,” the words stuck in his throat, but he made himself make a joke of it, “I promise to hit on someone.”

“Punching them doesn’t count.”

It was too much, this asking him to recognize the Thing and what it might, what it probably would, do to Ben someday, where that would leave Michael.

So he rolled his eyes, and he tried to smile a little, as he said, “I’ll drag someone into a closet at your funeral and make out with them until my lips are chapped and swollen, okay?”

“Okay.”

***

Ben was big on promises and keeping them, and that was how Michael ended up here.

He went into the closet because he couldn’t take one more smile or well-meaning hug. He couldn’t take one more encouraging smile, and he couldn’t take his mother trying to get him to eat. He went into the closet because he’d never been in the closet, and it seemed like the perfect place to cry.

Brian went into the closet to get high, and Michael let him, and he had a quick hit himself, which was enough to get him high. He wanted to giggle and be silly. He wanted to sneak into a movie theatre and pretend he was thirteen again.

He cried instead. He cried so hard that he didn’t care that he had snot all over his face. He cried so hard that Brian didn’t care he was sobbing all over his new Armani.

And then he kissed Brian.

He kissed Brian, and he put all the frustration of losing a partner into it. He put in all the frustration of being in love with your best friend for years and years until you fell in love again and that love became your best friend and you lost them too.

He kissed Brian, and Brian didn’t push him away. He didn’t stop him with a smile and a, “Not now, Mikey, what would your mother say?”

He kissed Brian until his lips were chapped and swollen and he was hiccuping into Brian’s mouth because he couldn’t breath and he could taste the pot and the greasy, funeral casserole and the ashy taste of the Thing he knew he shouldn’t be able to taste but always imagined he could.

And after, everyone stared and mumbled, “Brian fucking Kinney,” and Michael said, “Thank you,” and, “I love you,” and went up to his room. And Brian said, “Fuck off, everybody. Party’s over. Let him sleep.”

And Michael found a picture of Ben on vacation from when Michael could still forget about the Thing and what it would do and what it would take, and he curled up in their bed, into the cold space where he used to find his lover, his partner, his very best friend, and he whispered, “Thank you,” and, “I love you,” and he didn’t move at all when Brian came up and turned out the light and pulled a blanket over him and climbed in behind him and said, “Fuck them, Mikey. Go to sleep.”


End file.
